A
good test of whether any person’s belief is something which the rest of us
should take seriously is to ask them the question that forms the title of this
post.

Whether
you are a Christadelphian, an agnostic, a skeptic or an atheist it is a good
exercise in critical thinking to ask yourself what would change your mind.

As
an Ex-Christadelphian I can imagine several things that would persuade me that
I was wrong to have doubted.Perhaps the
obvious one would have to be the actual second coming of Jesus and all the
associated cataclysmic events that used to terrify me as a child when they were
due to happen “very soon”. That would
very definitely change my mind!

Refusal
to countenance the idea that any change of mind is possible is a sign that
someone is a close minded Fideist – belief that is based solely on faith and is
not subject to reason.

Last
week there was a well-publicised debate broadcast on the internet between Ken Ham
(Young Earth Creationist) and Bill Nye (Science educator).It took place at Ken Ham’s Creation Museum in
Kentucky, and they are already selling DVDs on the Answers in Genesis website –
never ones to miss a revenue opportunity despite the majority of internet
cognoscenti agreeing that Science won the debate. (And the whole thing’s on
YouTube – why would you pay for it?)

Perhaps
the most telling point in the debate was during the audience questions when the
debaters were asked if there was anything that would change their minds.Ken Ham is of course not a Christadelphian,
but his answer reflected the attitude that I have heard in several
Christadelphian YEC talks recently.

Ken Ham: Well. The answer to that
question is…I’m a Christian.And as a
Christian I can’t prove it to you, but God has definitely shown me very
clearly, through His word and shown himself in the person of Jesus Christ. The
Bible is the Word of God, I admit that that’s where I start from. I can
challenge people that you can go and test that, you can make predications based
on that, you can check the prophecies in the Bible, you can check the
statements in Genesis, you can check that, and I did a little bit of that
tonight. And I can’t ultimately prove that to you, all I can do is to say to
someone, “Look, if the Bible really is what it claims to be, if it really is
the word of God – and that’s what it claims – then, check it out, the bible
says that if you come to God believing that he is, he will reveal himself to
you, and you will know – as Christians we can say we know. And so as far as the
word of God is concerned: No – no-one’s ever going to convince me that the word
of God is not true…

To
summarise his words; “I know that I am right and there is no evidence that
would ever change my mind.”

Close
minded, unreasonable and unreasoning are just a few words that describe this
position, and yet it is the position of many – not just Christadelphians, but people of many kinds of Christian and non-Christian
faiths.

By
contrast the scientist Bill Nye listed several things which would be anomalous
to the generally accepted scientific picture which would make him change his
mind.As a result he actually answered
rather than dismissed the question as his opponent did.

For
those Christadelphians who are brave enough to read this blog please ask
yourself the question:What evidence
would change YOUR mind.

Are
you going to dismiss the question and just insist that you have an unshakable
faith, or are you going to face up to reason and come up with some real things
that would make you change your mind?